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CNN
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A Soviet-era spacecraft that was designed to make a soft landing on Venus — but instead remained trapped in Earth orbit for decades — is slated to fall from the sky Friday night or early Saturday, according to the latest estimates from experts.

The object, referred to as Cosmos 482 or Kosmos 482, is believed to be a capsule launched by the Soviet Union in March 1972 that failed en route to a transfer orbit that would have taken it to Venus to study its environment.

In the decades since, the object has circled Earth aimlessly as it was slowly dragged back toward home.

Astronomers and space traffic experts have had their eyes on the object for years now as its orbital path has slowly reached lower and lower altitudes, a result of the subtle atmospheric drag that exists even hundreds of miles away from Earth.

The cylinder-shaped craft, which is about 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter, is now predicted to crash back to Earth overnight. Cosmos 482 is on track to hit the ground or ocean roughly between 10 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. ET, according to four analyses of the object from various institutions, including the European Space Agency and the federally funded US research group Aerospace Corporation.

That guidance is still in line with predictions issued by space traffic experts earlier this week. The estimated time frame of the vehicle’s final descent will narrow as the event approaches.

Because of the sheer complexity of spaceflight and unpredictable factors, such as space weather, it can be extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly when or where an object will fall out of orbit.

This particular piece of space junk likely won’t pose a risk to people on the ground.

“This object was designed to survive reentering Venus, so there’s fair odds that it’ll survive coming back (to Earth) in one piece,” said Marlon Sorge, a space debris expert with The Aerospace Corporation, on Monday. “That actually makes the risk less … because it would stay intact.”

Often, when spaceborne garbage hurtles back toward Earth, objects such as defunct rocket parts are torn apart by the jarring physics as they can slam into Earth’s thick inner atmosphere while still traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour).

Each of the pieces from the rocket part can then pose a threat to the area where it lands.

But Cosmos 482 is uniquely suited to make the trip home in one piece. The spacecraft has a substantial heat shield that protects the vehicle from the intense temperatures and pressures that can build up during reentry.

And because Cosmos 482 was designed to reach the surface of Venus — where the atmosphere is 90 times denser than Earth’s — the probe is likely to reach the ground intact.

The Soviet Union’s Space Research Institute, or IKI, ran a groundbreaking Venus exploration program amid the 20th century space race.

Venera, as the program was called, sent a series of probes toward Venus in the 1970s and ’80s, with several spacecraft surviving the trip and beaming data back to Earth before ceasing operations.

Of the two Venera vehicles that were launched in 1972 , however, only one made it to Venus.

The other, a spacecraft sometimes cataloged as V-71 No. 671, did not. And that’s why researchers believe the object that space traffic experts are tracking is Cosmos 482. (Beginning in the 1960s, Soviet vehicles left in Earth orbit were each given the Cosmos name and a numerical designation for tracking purposes, according to NASA.)

While a landing on dry ground is unlikely, it’s not impossible. The Cosmos 482 object’s trajectory shows it could hit anywhere within a broad swath of land that includes “the whole of Africa, South America, Australia, the USA, parts of Canada, parts of Europe, and parts of Asia,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer and space traffic expert at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, via email.

Sorge emphasized that if Cosmos 482 hits the ground after its final descent tonight, onlookers are advised to keep their distance. The aged spacecraft could leak dangerous fuels or pose other risks to people and property.

“Contact the authorities,” Sorge urged. “Please don’t mess with it.”

Legally speaking, the object also belongs to Russia. According to rules mapped out in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — which remains the primary document underpinning international law on the matter — the nation that launched an object to space retains ownership and responsibility for it even if it crashes back to Earth decades after launch.

Though defunct objects in space routinely fall out of orbit, most pieces of debris disintegrate entirely during the reentry process.

But the world is in the midst of a new space race, with commercial companies such as SpaceX launching hundreds of new satellites to orbit each year. That burst in activity has raised alarms across the space traffic community, as experts are seeking to ensure that objects don’t collide in space or pose a risk to humans if they make an uncontrolled descent back home.

Safety standards have drastically improved since the 20th century space race when the Soviet Venus probe was launched, noted Parker Wishik, a spokesperson for The Aerospace Corporation.

Still, incidents such as the impending impact event are a stark reminder.

“What goes up must come down,” Wishik said. “What you put up in space today might affect us for decades to come.”

New York
CNN
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Stacey Wales spent two years working on the victim impact statement she planned to give in court after her brother was shot to death in a 2021 road rage incident. But even after all that time, Wales felt her statement wouldn’t be enough to capture her brother Christopher Pelkey’s humanity and what he would’ve wanted to say.

So, Wales decided to let Pelkey give the statement himself — with the help of artificial intelligence.

She and her husband created an AI-generated video version of Pelkey to play during his killer’s sentencing hearing earlier this month that read, in a recreation of Pelkey’s own voice, a script that Wales wrote. In it, the AI version of Pelkey expressed forgiveness to the shooter, something Wales said she knew her brother would have done but she wasn’t ready to do herself just yet.

“The only thing that kept entering my head that I kept hearing was Chris and what he would say,” Wales told CNN. “I had to very carefully detach myself in order to write this on behalf of Chris because what he was saying is not necessarily what I believe, but I know it’s what he would think.”

AI is increasingly playing a role in legal and criminal justice processes, although this is believed to be the first time AI has been used to recreate a victim for their own impact statement. And experts say the world will increasingly have to grapple with ethical and practical questions about the use of AI to replicate deceased people — both inside courtrooms and beyond them — as the technology becomes more human-like.

“We’ve all heard the expression, ‘seeing is believing, hearing is believing,’” said Paul Grimm, a Duke University School of Law professor and former district court judge in Maryland. “These kinds of technologies have tremendous impact to persuade and influence, and we’re always going to have to be balancing whether or not it is distorting the record upon which the jury or the judge has to decide in a way that makes it an unfair advantage for one side or the other.”

Judge Todd Lang of Maricopa County Superior Court ultimately sentenced Pelkey’s killer Gabriel Paul Horcasitas to 10.5 years for manslaughter — although the state had asked for only 9.5 years — and 12.5 years in total, including an endangerment charge.

“I love that AI. Thank you for that,” Lang said, a recording of the hearing shows. “As angry as you are and justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness.”

Pelkey’s story was previously reported by ABC15 Arizona.

Pelkey was the youngest of three children, a veteran and, according to Wales, “the most forgiving and the friendliest” member of the family. He was killed in November 2021 in Chandler, Arizona at the age of 37.

Pelkey’s autopsy photos and surveillance video of his death were shown during the trial, Wales said. But after a jury found Horcasitas guilty of reckless manslaughter, Wales wanted the judge to see what Pelkey was like when he was alive during the sentencing hearing.

Wales and her husband, Tim Wales, work in tech — she said they’d previously created AI video replicas of former CEOs and founders to speak at company conferences — so they decided in the weeks leading up to the sentencing hearing to try replicating Pelkey the same way.

They used several software platforms, trained on photos and an old video of Pelkey, to create the AI replica that was shown in the hearing on May 1. And on the day before the sentencing hearing, Wales called her lawyer, Jessica Gattuso, to get her blessing for the plan.

“I was concerned, I thought we would get an objection or some kind of pushback … I did what research I could, but I didn’t find anything because I’ve never heard of this being done,” Gattuso told CNN, adding that she ultimately relied on an Arizona law that gives victims discretion in how to deliver their statement.

Like other AI videos depicting people, the recreation of Pelkey is somewhat halting and awkward and starts with an acknowledgement that it was made using the technology. But Wales said she believes it captured his essence.

“It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI version of Pelkey said in the video. “In another life, we probably could have been friends.”

Horcasitas’s lawyer, Jason Lamm, said the defense did not receive advance notice that AI would be used in a victim impact statement. He added: “It appears that the judge gave some weight to the AI video and that is an issue that will likely be pursued on appeal.”

Judges are increasingly facing decisions about AI’s role in the courtroom — including whether it should have one at all.

In a separate case in New York last month, an appellate judge quickly shut down an attempt by a plaintiff to have an AI-generated avatar argue his case, without first clarifying that it was not a real person. And just last week, a federal judicial panel advanced a draft rule that would require AI-generated evidence to meet the same reliability standards as evidence from human expert witnesses, according to a Reuters report.

AI’s advancement has also raised questions about whether the technology could replace human jobs in the legal field.

“It’s not going away, and we’re going to see more instances of this,” said Grimm, who was not involved with the Pelkey case. “Judges tend to be a little nervous about this technology, and so we’ll probably see initially more nos than yeses.”

Judges may be especially hesitant to allow AI-generated evidence or visual aids to be presented to a jury, which, unlike a judge in a sentencing case, hasn’t been trained not to let emotion overwhelm the facts of the case, Grimm said. There are also questions around whether AI could inaccurately represent a party to a case, for example, by making them appear more sympathetic.

Grimm suggested that, going forward, opposing counsel be given the chance to view AI-generated content and raise potential objections for a judge to review, before it gets shown in court.

Even Wales cautioned the technology should be used carefully.

“This was not evidence, the jury never saw this. It wasn’t even made before a verdict came down of guilty,” Wales said. “This is an opinion. And the judge was allowed to see a human that’s no longer here for who he was.”

Ultimately, she said, replicating her brother with AI was “healing” for her family. After it played in court, she said her 14-year-old son told her: “Thank you so much for making that. I needed to see and hear from Uncle Chris one more time.”

–CNN’s Hazel Tang contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the name of Stacey Wales’ husband, Tim Wales.

A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

New York
CNN
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OK, so! After a month of negotiations, we finally have a “full and comprehensive” trade agreement with our old pals across the pond.

Huge news! What a relief, right? Pop the champagne, the trade war nightmare is almost over…

What’s that? What’s in it, you ask? Like, what is the “deal” part of the deal?

OK, so it’s more of a concept of a deal. If a trade deal is, like, Michelangelo’s David, this is more like a block of marble. Or really it’s like a receipt from the marble guy that says we’ve placed an order for a block of marble.

Maybe put the champagne back in the fridge.

Here is what the US and the UK announced Thursday: President Donald Trump’s team took the US tax on British imports from 10% to *checks notes* 10%. Yes, it is the exact same tariff rate that Trump announced on April 2, but with some fun new carve-outs:

That’s honestly it — there are no more details, as both sides said specifics are still being ironed out. It’s not all that surprising, given that traditionally trade deals require months or even years of painstaking talks.

“A trade agreement where the details are still being negotiated is not an agreement,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, on social media. “This does not provide the clarity necessary to lift the fog of uncertainty created by a trade war of choice.”

To hear the White House announce it on Thursday, though, you’d think they just won a Nobel prize and a gold medal. In a Truth Social post, Trump said it was “a very big and exciting day.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it “historic” with what sounded like a straight face, though it should be noted he joined the Oval Office event via speakerphone, because the Trump administration cobbled this whole spectacle together at the last minute. (The British ambassador to the US even said that Trump called Starmer in a “very typical, 11th-hour intervention.”)

The Brits, for their part, said even an imperfect deal is better than no deal at all.

Asked by reporters in England whether this deal marks an improvement on the US-UK relationship of six months ago, before Trump took office, Starmer replied: “The question you should be asking is: Is it better than where we were yesterday?”

Which is a gentle British way of saying: Look, we’re all doing our little dances in the Trump show to avoid tempting the wrath of the leader of the world’s biggest economy.

Wall Street, similarly, isn’t letting perfection be the enemy of the good. Stocks rallied in the US as investors – hungry for any sign Trump is going to relent on the trade war – embraced the White House’s optimism.

Just for kicks, let’s say this is an actual framework for a real trade deal that will get hammered out over the next few weeks. That is better than nothing.

But it took more than a month to roll out this titanic nothingburger with one of our closest allies. An ally that, with all due affection to our British brethren, accounts for just 3% of all US trade, Justin Wolfers, professor of economics at the University of Michigan, told CNN.

That doesn’t bode well for the thousands of American businesses that are currently paralyzed by Trump’s 145% tariffs on most imports from China, an adversary that’s not so charmed by the president’s 11th-hour shenanigans and is America’s third-largest trading partner.

US and Chinese envoys are set to meet this weekend in Geneva. But American officials aren’t even suggesting a trade deal will come out of it – the best that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he’s hoping for is “de-escalation.”

Bottom line: Very little has changed about the state of the global economy since the US-UK “deal” was announced. We still have a 22% effective tariff rate today – the highest in more than 100 years – compared with 2.5% before Trump took office.

“Overwhelmingly the most important fact about today’s trade deal is that the 10% across the board tariffs are staying,” Wolfers said on social media Thursday. “Tiny tweaks here and there with some trading partners won’t change that. The US is a high tariff country for the foreseeable future, and the trade war continues.”